The Middle Grove Experiment
The story of the original Robber's Grave Experiment
The Robber’s Cave Experiment is one of the most popular studies in Social Psychology. It was conducted by Muzafer Sherif in the Robber’s Cave State Park in Oklahoma, USA.
If you want to know more about the experiment itself, you can follow this link. For the super lazy, here is a short summary of the experiment:
Young boys were separated into two groups arbitrarily. They were kept separate from each other for the first few weeks.
When the two groups met each other, there was tension and conflict between the two over the division of resources.
These conflicts could be overcome by giving common goals to both groups to encourage cooperation and teamwork.
I have talked about Sherif before. I discussed his tumultuous personal history and subsequent psychological work in this story a few weeks back.
That said, the story today is not about Robber’s Cave. It is about another experiment, conducted by Sherif himself, prior to the one in Robber’s Cave - The Middle Grove Experiment.
Happy Valley, 1949
Sherif was a firm believer that conflict did not arise due to ‘evil’ individuals creating conflict but due to larger, social dynamics which encouraged conflict as a form of resolution.
Sherif believed that even the most ethical people could be made to commit horrific acts if placed in a group that is competing with others for scarce resources. He called this the “Realistic Conflict Theory”
To confirm his theory, he conducted a pilot study in Happy Valley, in 1949. He divided a group of 24 boys into two groups that had to compete for trophies.
Within 3 days, the two groups were involved in food fights, threw utensils at each other, and often hurled cups at members of the other group. Sherif was pleased.
Now he needed to go to the next step, he needed to prove that these differences could be resolved with common goals as well. That was when the Middle Grove experiment was designed.
Pythons and Panthers
Sherif raised $38,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation ($433,000 in today’s money) and set out to confirm his theory once and for all.
He picked 24, 11-year-old boys for a 3-week camp visit. The boys were not told it is a field experiment, they were simply told they were going for a summer camp.
The boys were transported together in a bus and stayed in a common lodging during the initial days. A few days after arrival, they were divided into two groups arbitrarily, the Pythons and the Panthers.
This was upsetting for some boys. They had already formed friendships and didn’t want to be separated from their friends in the other group. Little did the experimenters know that this was just foreshadowing the problems yet to come.
As time went on, status and roles were being divided within each group through brutal bullying. Instead of intervening to protect the boys, the organizer simply let the bullying go on. You know, for the sake of science.
Instead of becoming a strong, cohesive unit, the two groups were constantly at risk of falling apart. That was when Sherif introduced a sure-shot way of increasing conflict between groups - sports
Cohesion over Division
The groups were made to compete for precious prizes through a sport. Sherif believed this would increase in-group cohesion and between-group division.
Instead, when the winners were given their prizes, they insisted that the prizes be shared with the losing team as well. They wanted to practice good sportsmanship over domination over the losing team.
This was unexpected for Sherif and his team of researchers.
One night, some researchers raided the camp of one of the groups and blamed the other. This was another attempt to deepen the divisions between the two groups. Unfortunately, this failed as well.
The suspects swore on a Bible that they had nothing to do with this. The young victims were convinced. Both groups blamed the counselors for trying to make them fight.
Sherif’s theory was breaking down in front of his eyes.
The boys were not doing too well either. They wanted to spend time with friends from the other group. They missed home and they did not want to fight. These were 11-year-olds after all.
Interestingly, the state of the experiment led to division among the researchers themselves. Some wanted to end the experiment, others wanted to ensure group division through any means necessary.
Some accounts report there may have been a physical altercation among the researchers. Sherif needed to do something quickly. A lot was at stake.
Telling the funders that he got it wrong could have been disastrous for Sherif’s career.
The experiment was called off abruptly and the kids were sent home. No accounts of this experiment were published in journals. They were simply stored in a cupboard.
Sherif had to return to the drawing board and justify the investment from the Rockefellers.
Middle Grove: Take 2
Sherif immediately identified what needed to be changed in his second attempt at the experiment.
The two groups needed to be divided before all the participants could meet each other. He ensured separate buses and separate camps for the two groups.
One group was not told about the presence of the other group until phase 2 of the study. This gave each group an opportunity to bond and become cohesive.
The location needed to be different as well. A state park in Oklahoma was selected as an appropriate location
The name of the park? Robber’s Cave State Park, Oklahoma.
The Ethics of It All
Whenever we read about the story of Robber’s Cave, we rarely discuss the ethics of the experiment. In Middle Grove, the children were never debriefed about what they had experienced.
For those kids, it was just another summer camp, a painful and horrifying experience.
They were never given the option for informed consent, moreover, they were never told what the purpose of the study was. For the researchers, these boys were simply guinea pigs.
At a deeper level, it also raises concerns about the experimental validity of Sherif’s theory. When Sherif was confronted with evidence contradicting his theory, Sherif chose to redesign the experiment itself instead of modifying his theory.
That is not how science is supposed to work. Yet, Sherif continues to be one of the most popular social psychologists. His theory continues to live on.
You can read more about this story via Brannigan, A. (2021). The archival turn in classical social psychology: Some recent reports. Theory & Psychology, 31(1), 138–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354320920367
Do you think Sherif was right in conducting his experiments in the way he did? The boys from Middle Grove lived with the trauma of this experience throughout their life. Some of them never visited a camp ever again. even in adult life.
What is an acceptable cost for scientific knowledge? Especially in psychology?
You can let me know your thoughts by replying to the email or in the comments below!
Until next time,
Arjun
Very thought provoking. I’m all for science experiments but certain safety and consent measures should be taken. It’s often seen that a scientist will let his ego take over and commit bad scientific research.
Starting this comment off with a quote by Gordon Allport, a well-known American Psychologist: "The most important anchorage to our self-identity throughout life remains our name." In my Substack newsletter, Subconscious Fat, I wrote about how our names impact our lives. Muzafer Sherif, with a name like Sherif, subconsciously or not, felt like a deputy sheriff. He felt he had power, and ethics was likely secondary in his experiments.